OCR Text |
Show 34 · t her bosom the young h 0 ldI. ng on by his mother's ahgaai1rn*s At what tim' e of life the Orang-U tan b eco ro.e s capable . t' d how long the females go with young, of propaga wn, aJ_' • b ble that they are not adult until is unknown, but It IS pro a £ 1 h' h the arrive at ten or fifteen years of age. A ema e. w lC liv:a. for five years at Batavia, had not attained one-third ~he h . ht f the wild females. It is probable that, after reaching eig 0 adult years, they go on growing, though slow 1y , an d tha t they live to forty or fifty years. The Dyaks tell of ol.d Orang~, hich have not only lost all their teeth, but whwh find It :troublesome to climb, that they maintain themselves on windfalls and juicy herbage. 'rhe Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that marvellous activity characteristic of the Gibbons. Hunger alone se~ms to stir him to exertion, and when it is stilled, he relapses In.to repose. When the animal sits ' it curves its back and bow.s Its h d so as to look straight down on the ground; sometimes ea ' . 1 t 't h Ids on with its hands by a higher branch, sometimes e s I 0 . h . them hang phlegmatically down by its side-and I~ t ese posi-tions the Orang will remain, for hours together, In the ~a.me spot, almost without stirring, and only now and then giving utterance to its deep, growling voice. By day, he usu.ally climbs from one tree-top to another, and only at night descends to the ground, and if then threatened with danger, he seeks refuge among the underwood. When not hu~ted, he remains a long time in the same locality, and sometn~es stops for many days on the same tree~ a firm place among Its branches serving h:im for a bed. It IS rare for the Orang to pass the night in the summit of a large tree, probably bec~use it is too windy and cold there for him; but, as soon as .night draws on, he descends from the height and seeks out a fit bed • See Mr. Wallace's account of an infant" Orang-utan," in the " Annals. of Natural History" for 1856. Mr. ':Vallace provided his interesting charge with an artificial mother of buffala:-skin, but the cheat was too succes. ful: The infant's entire experience led it to associate teats with hair, and feeling the latter, it spent its existence in vain endeavoms to discover the former. 35 in the lower and darker part, or in the leafy top of a small tree among which he prefers Nibong Palms, Pandani, or one 0 ; those parasitic Orchids which give the primreval forests of .Borneo so characteristic and striking an appearance. But wherever he determines to sleep, there he prepares himself a sort of nest: little boughs and leaves are drawn together round the selected spot, and bent crosswise over one another· . ' while to make the bed soft, great leaves of Ferns, of Orchids, of Pandanus fascicularis, Nipa fruticans, &c., are laid over them. Those which Miiller saw, many of them being very fresh, were situated at a height of ten to twenty-five feet above the ground, and had a circumference, on the average, of two or three feet. Some were packed many inches thick with Pandanus leaves; others were remarkable only for the cracked twigs, which, united in a common centre, formed a regular platform. "The rude hut," says Sir James Brooke, ('which they are stated to build in the trees, would be more properly called a seat or nest, for it has no roof or cover of any sort. The facility with which they form this nest is curious, and I had an opportunity of seeing a wounded female weave the branches together and seat herself, within a minute." According to the Dyaks the Orang rarely leaves his bed before the sun is well above the horizon and has dissipated the mists. He gets up about nine, and goes to bed again about five; but sometimes not till late in the twilight. He lies sometimes on his back ; or, by way of change, turns on one side or the other, drawing his limbs up to his body, and resting his head on his hand. When the night is cold, windy, or rainy, he usually covers his body with a heap of Pandanus:~ Nipa, or Fern leaves, like those of which his bed is made, and he is especially careful to wrap up his head in them. It is this habit of covering himself up which has probably led to the fable that the Orang builds huts in the trees. Although the Orang resides mostly amid the boughs of great D2 |